Food Scientist Cooks Up Juicy Profits

This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.

In today's story, instead of working in R&D or academia, this PhD picks another path by honing his skills as a freelance writer focused on food science. It pays to specialize. You know, a while back we had a story about the fisherman writer. That's just what I called him. He was actually a government lawyer who landed a whale of a side gig. That was episode 1550. And this

government lawyer slash fisherman writer earns around $50,000 a year part time. This is his side gig freelance writing focused around the world of sport fishing. Now this is somewhat unusual just to be fair because a lot of full-time freelance writers don't earn $50,000 a year. But one key for that guy was becoming the guy for writing about fishing, this specialized world. So that's kind of what we have here today. It's a food scientist who cooks up juicy profits.

Also a bonus lesson today, how can you find someone's email address? I don't mean for stalking that person you saw at the grocery store that you thought was cute. I'm talking about someone at a company that you're trying to pitch. If you're like there's a company out there, I'd love to form some kind of relationship. How do I go about doing that? Well, there's a

trick you can use to find someone's email address, at least for a lot of people. So we'll cover that in the episode as well. It's all coming up after this quick break. Back in 2011, Brian Quoclet got accepted to PhD programs in chemistry. But he wasn't sure if the time was right. His dad had

passed away the year before, so he needed time to reflect and clear his head. He set out to walk across the United States and figure out what to do next. He ended up walking 2,000 miles from his alma mater, UC Irvine, to New Orleans, Louisiana, in about six months. The walk was a sort of social experiment to see how far he could go based on the generosity of others. He says people would just drive by, leave him money, food or water, and drive away. Through that experience, he learned

he liked talking to people from all walks of life, sharing stories with people he met along the way and writing about his journey online. A few years later, Brian got married and his wife turned him into a foodie. He also got really interested in how food and science intersect. So in 2015, he started a PhD program in food science. That's the study of the science and technology involved in creating food at scale. After an internship, though, he realized he didn't want to be an R&D

scientist for a company. He also didn't want to do academic research. Brian asked himself, "What do I want to do? What is the sweet spot between what I'm good at, what I enjoy, and what the world needs?" It turned out a new path had been marinating this whole time. He had a friend who worked as a freelance journalist, and he liked the idea that writing is portable. It was

something he could take anywhere. Plus, he loved to tell stories. The Institute of Food Technologists was recruiting writers for their blog, so Brian volunteered to get experience. He concentrated on writing well-researched, highly polished articles that he was proud to show off. He spent weeks brainstorming and researching each article while on lunch breaks or at night after work. Once he had

a few writing samples under his belt, he pitched companies in the food industry to see if he could write for them, still for free. Now, I have a little editor's note here. This is actually from our writer Susan. She said, "She hates the idea that new freelancers should have to write for exposure until they have a zillion clips." And I agree. That's why it's good that soon, Brian had a portfolio good enough to land a paid gig writing articles for an investment website. Now, between

2018 and 2019, Brian earned about $2,000 from his writing, so he wasn't exactly rolling in dough. But he had tasted the fruits of his labors and believed he could grow his earnings much more. After a year of writing, he created a portfolio website using journoPortfolio. It's a tool that makes it easy to keep track of your writing samples. He also kept writing for free for the association to position himself as an authority and eventually moved up to managing their blog, which is called Science Meets Food. Brian's editorship caught the eye of a publisher who

offered him $8,000 to write a food science book called "150 Food Science Questions Answered." These kinds of projects often have a quick turnaround and Brian wrote the book in two months, which is very fast, by the way. My books take longer than two months, a lot longer. Not exactly a piece of cake, but his hard work paid off because the book snowballed into more projects with food startups. Most of his writing for these startups bridges the knowledge between the science of food and the consumer, something Brian is uniquely qualified to do. It's his specialty, but how does he get these gigs? Well, Brian admits that he hates networking in person,

but he's found a digital process that works instead. First, he searches news outlets for food and biotechnology startups that have recently received funding. He then searches for their CEO's name and uses the free version of hunter.io to find the CEO's direct email address so he can pitch them via email. And by the way, I'm going to come back to that at the end to talk about this hunter.io. He congratulates them on their recent win, then switches over to how he can help. He

also tracks response rates to hone his process. By the end of 2020, Brian had earned $18,000, nine times more than he earned in the previous two years combined. Since finishing his PhD and defending his dissertation on Zoom in 2020, he's focused on growing his side hustle into a full-time venture. Brian is now bringing in $4,500 a month consistently and projects that he'll hit $6,000 a month soon, if all goes according to plan. In the next year or two, he hopes to bring it up to $10,000 a month on a consistent basis by adding sub-disciplines with high demand, like food safety consulting and technical documentation for manufacturers. He also plans to add additional

revenue streams such as writing a second book and maybe even starting a podcast. One of the limitations of freelance writing is that it's really hard to scale up earnings because you'd have to raise your rates or complete more projects and there are only so many hours in a day. So adding these additional revenue streams is smart. He's also in talks with a food startup to become its spokesperson and chief storyteller. All right, so several tools in this episode that we will, of course, link up on the show notes page, including that way to find people's email addresses, hunter.io, pretty cool service. It's a paid service, but they do have a free version and

that's what Brian uses. He's able to track down the emails of CEOs, other executives, or all sorts of startups and companies. I also mentioned that journalist portfolio website template that could be useful for our freelance writers out there. And last but not least, it's a side note, but the walk across America is pretty cool. I know a few people who've done that. They

always talk about how it's an amazing life-changing experience. I also know people who have walked across Canada, the UK, India, and Turkey. I might choose the UK because I think that's the shortest walk myself, but very cool experiences. And sometimes it's the indirect influences on our life that end up bringing us to a totally different career as opposed to the direct formal education and all of that process. So think about that for yourself. What kind of indirect

experience can you get that might help you create a change or otherwise get you closer to that thing that you're already working toward? I'll leave you with that today. Inspiration is good, but inspiration with action is so much better. Our show notes are at sidehustleschool.com/1632. Thank you so much for tuning in. Got a new episode coming up tomorrow. You can subscribe or follow

wherever you get your podcast. And I hope you'll join me. My name is Chris Guillebeau. This is Side Hustle School. From the Onward Project.